Several industries, including motor vehicle, transportation and insurance, desire to have a device in the safety belt system of a motor vehicle which will indicate whether or not the safety belt was worn during an impact collision. Also, if the device was worn, when the collision occurred. In the past, the loading could only be determined when the belt was abraded, chafed or if the metal supports were bent or broken. However, many vehicle collisions are not severe enough as to bend or break the metal supports since they are made of very durable material. Thus, by a visual examination of a built-in safety belt assembly, it is not always possible to determine if the safety belt assembly was subject to a collision or if excessive forces had been exerted on the assembly.
In order to overcome the inability to determine whether or not a safety belt was worn during a collision, it is one of the primary objects of the present invention to provide a safety belt assembly which determines the amount of force exerted on the safety belt assembly.
An additional objective of the present invention is to provide the point in time when the excessive force was exerted on the safety belt assembly.
To achieve the foregoing objectives, a safety belt assembly according to the present invention provides a first and second plate, means for providing incremental movement of the plates with respect to one another, a resilient biasing means in communication with the plates for maintaining the plates in a first relaxed position, means for indicating when a force is exerted on the assembly, and means for securing the plates to a conventional belt and buckle.
More particularly, the means for providing incremental movement is comprised of intermeshing fingers positioned on both plates which ratchet incrementally moving and locking the second plate in the first plate in response to a force exerted on the assembly.
Additional objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the reading of the detailed description of the preferred embodiments, which make reference to the accompanying drawings.